De-programming cults, de-programming religions.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Just designated zealots. If they're not causing the public problems, I'd rather they have the right to be as peacefully deluded as they like, because I want to keep my right to be as peacefully deluded as I like, too. I don't like the idea of them trying to force their worldview on me, so I don't try to force my worldview on them.

You can force that avatar gal on me if you wish.

I'm liking her "worldview", too.

The whole world got a view just then.

[Audley Strange]

Well, you walked into a situation that has been going on for a good while then, because the apologists routinely claim God is the only source of morals.

As for Matt: http://atheist-community.org/

Yes I'm aware of the whole innate morality/Goddidit false dilemma, I just think the dilemma is false.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, you walked into a situation that has been going on for a good while then, because the apologists routinely claim God is the only source of morals.

As for Matt: http://atheist-community.org/

Yes I'm aware of the whole innate morality/Goddidit false dilemma, I just think the dilemma is false.

Of course it is, theists lie about anything they want to, then claim atheists are immoral.

[apophenia]

Regarding the OP, de-programming is just another name for reverse brainwashing, and brainwashing, reverse or otherwise, is never appropriate simply because you don't like what a person believes or because it is an efficient means to bring about ends important to you. Brainwashing is brainwashing, and it should be criminal in whatever context. What's next? De-programming children as they go through public schools so that they actually like being heavily taxed? "The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.” (Ursula K Le Guin, The Lathe Of Heaven)

For what it's worth, imo, atheists, secularists, humanists, Buddhists, it doesn't matter, all are in important senses equally deluded. The human animal isn't geared for truth, only survival and reproduction, and that difference reframes the entire question of what purpose our beliefs serve and what methods of choosing beliefs serve those ends. Humans are emotional and social first, and rational third - if indeed one can put reason that high up in the rankings. A staple of bounded rationality is that cognitive algorithms which produce optimal solutions would be so prohibitively expensive brain and time wise to an animal as to make them essentially useless. The brain makes educated guesses, based on a built in assumption of uniformity of nature and other environmental invariants, which probabilistically yields useful results (again, useful, not true, but useful - to survival and reproduction).

I had another point to make, but the tea kettle is whistling and I am called away. Maybe I'll think of it later.

ETA: I remember!

We recently discussed a book about Scientology and the term "cult" came up rather quickly in the conversation. I attempted to corner those using the term as, in my words at the time, it is a word that is over-used and underdefined. The only stable meaning that seemed to rise to the surface was that a cult was a religion with one of the three following characteristics:

1) unpopularity - it was not liked by more mainstream religions or people,
2) numbers - the religion has a small number of adherents, relatively speaking, and is not well established,
3) newness - the newer a religion, the more likely it is accorded a cult (e.g. Scientology, versus Mormonism versus Christianity)

In my view, these are the essential criteria by which people sieve religions into cult or non-cult status, and in my view, they are wholly meaningless and inappropriate for it. (Some raised the question of Hubbard's intent in founding Scientology as a separate criteria, but that, is another discussion).

[Audley Strange]

Well, you walked into a situation that has been going on for a good while then, because the apologists routinely claim God is the only source of morals.

As for Matt: http://atheist-community.org/

Yes I'm aware of the whole innate morality/Goddidit false dilemma, I just think the dilemma is false.

Of course it is, theists lie about anything they want to, then claim atheists are immoral.

Yes and atheists never lie or do anything bad or vilify huge groups of people based on their beliefs. That's not really a great argument about morality at all. In fact it kind of bolsters my opinion that humanity is amoral by nature and behaviour and that such is detrimental to large societal groups, thus morality was invented to differentiate between socially beneficial behaviour and socially problematic behaviour. Since I have no reason to suspect that the proto-civilsations were not fond of using Gods as the ultimate arbitrer of those invented rules, I have no problem believing that the religious invented morality.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, you walked into a situation that has been going on for a good while then, because the apologists routinely claim God is the only source of morals.

As for Matt: http://atheist-community.org/

Yes I'm aware of the whole innate morality/Goddidit false dilemma, I just think the dilemma is false.

Of course it is, theists lie about anything they want to, then claim atheists are immoral.

Yes and atheists never lie or do anything bad or vilify huge groups of people based on their beliefs. That's not really a great argument about morality at all. In fact it kind of bolsters my opinion that humanity is amoral by nature and behaviour and that such is detrimental to large societal groups, thus morality was invented to differentiate between socially beneficial behaviour and socially problematic behaviour. Since I have no reason to suspect that the proto-civilsations were not fond of using Gods as the ultimate arbitrer of those invented rules, I have no problem believing that the religious invented morality.

I think religious folks are delusional, but I won't lie to support that idea. Atheists are indeed human, but for shear mendacity the religious supporters take the cake. My aunt Rosella is very very religious, but she has no problem telling lies about atheists.

As for morality, I think religion hijacked it. Apes have been observed acting morally, it may have been the first social currency a few million years ago, well before religion came along. I picture it this way, based on an admitted amateur anthropological education. We had to cooperate in groups, and the ones that "paid their debts" and so forth gained status in the group. This evolved into a fairly formal set of morals. Then the priestly parasites came along and started claiming this morality was generated by the gods they served. Things have gone down hill ever since.

[Audley Strange]

Well, you walked into a situation that has been going on for a good while then, because the apologists routinely claim God is the only source of morals.

As for Matt: http://atheist-community.org/

Yes I'm aware of the whole innate morality/Goddidit false dilemma, I just think the dilemma is false.

Of course it is, theists lie about anything they want to, then claim atheists are immoral.

Yes and atheists never lie or do anything bad or vilify huge groups of people based on their beliefs. That's not really a great argument about morality at all. In fact it kind of bolsters my opinion that humanity is amoral by nature and behaviour and that such is detrimental to large societal groups, thus morality was invented to differentiate between socially beneficial behaviour and socially problematic behaviour. Since I have no reason to suspect that the proto-civilsations were not fond of using Gods as the ultimate arbitrer of those invented rules, I have no problem believing that the religious invented morality.

I think religious folks are delusional, but I won't lie to support that idea. Atheists are indeed human, but for shear mendacity the religious supporters take the cake. My aunt Rosella is very very religious, but she has no problem telling lies about atheists.

As for morality, I think religion hijacked it. Apes have been observed acting morally, it may have been the first social currency a few million years ago, well before religion came along. I picture it this way, based on an admitted amateur anthropological education. We had to cooperate in groups, and the ones that "paid their debts" and so forth gained status in the group. This evolved into a fairly formal set of morals. Then the priestly parasites came along and started claiming this morality was generated by the gods they served. Things have gone down hill ever since.

I don't think we are too much in disagreement, though I don't consider projecting human imagined concepts onto instinctual behaviour as evidence of instinctual behaviour as being the cause of humans imagining those concepts, if that makes any sense to you at all. I could get right into this if you like, but I'm not sure it has much in the way of value to anyone but myself, since it's all been research I did for a personal project.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't think it's instinctual, I think it's learned. And I think the learned behaviors accumulated into a system of morals that we took farther than other animals because of our mental abilities to extrapolate from the benefits derived from moral behavior and the penalties received for failing to act morally.

The important thing is we lived together for millions of years without religion, but we would not have done so without an unspoken/unwritten code of morals. The evidence from observation of chimps, bonobos, gorillas, orangs, etc., support this I believe. And they have little or no religion insofar as I can tell.

[Audley Strange]

Yeah, I don't agree it's learned any more than I think us having opposible thumbs is. If anything I'd say the proto-humans instinctual drives towards certain behaviours had a form of evolutionary advantage. Things like territorial invasion, murder, plunder and rape are beneficial but we would hardly consider them moral, but from your P.O.V. why not? By eradicating weaker genetic lines, robbing rescources and forcing your genes forward, you are more likely to prolong your genetic line than you would be through homoestatic mutualism.

Again I say that humans are amoral beings, that morality is an invented behavioural control system that categorises all our behaviours as positive or negative. I'd suggest that the first people to create such a distinction were those heirarchs in charge of the first societies in order to keep such societies from disbanding and themselves at the top of the heap. I'd say that from the point of view of Morality, the invention of Morality is highly immoral.